


The Coffee Makes Everyone Sick

by Aquaphobia



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Minor John Egbert/Dave Strider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 07:09:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3478982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aquaphobia/pseuds/Aquaphobia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dave is bulimic and the coffee makes you vomit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Coffee Makes Everyone Sick

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this probably a good two years ago but only recently got the nerve to post it. I'm not into Homestuck as much anymore, but I do still love it. Plus I'm always willing to add to the sad Dave fodder. Critiques are welcome and I hope you enjoy my friends! (Tw for eating disorders & hints at ptsd & blood!!)

The way they speak makes you wanna shove your fingers down your throat. You know they know, they are all well aware of your, ahem, 'ailment'. At least.. you think. This year you've hid it excellently, almost to a sublime degree and everything that entails- you're a master at this shit. Although you've had some slip ups, cracked some jokes, you're doing better than ever, getting better than ever at your little hobby. But now, now you want nothing more than to blow your shit all over the walls. You want to roll in it, cover the fuckin' building in it, create mountains of vomit that'll drown the these fuckers so bad they'll swallow mouth fulls and die in your fluids. 

You want to purge. 

He's lecturing again, Karkat that is. He's standing up on some homemade podium that looks about ready to capsize. The rest of you are gathered around, listening to him aimlessly rant and get so far off topic you find it nearly impossible for him to get back on track. He rarely does, and these meetings more often than not end with shouting and mocking laughter directed both to and from your supposed 'leader'. 

You just- today you can't do this. Your feet are tapping like crazy and you can tell Terezi senses something's up by the way she sniffs in your direction and frowns, occasionally wrapping an arm around yours to establish some comforting contact to ease your unspecified anxiety. It doesn't help. It makes you feel worse. You feel worse, you feel awful.

You feel a loss of control that makes your insides curl and squeal like an caged animal. It's consuming your rationality. You want to just do it right here. In front of everyone, make them watch. Make them watch you-- for once make someone notice you. 

If you don't do this now you'll never feel better. So you stand and without picking your gaze up from your shoes you walk out of the room. They've all stopped talking, and you can feel the stares but fail to pay close enough attention to if anything was said once you exit. 

Your slow pace has quickly turned into an all-out sprint, speeding down the many halls and through the maze of doors before you forget where you are. The surroundings look blurry and you rip off your shades to see better. It does nothing.

Turning on you heels you back track before racing in the other direction, clutching your shades so hard bits dig into your skin and leave harsh red indents in the flesh. Where the fuck are you? Everything looks so different and you're sweating so bad you start to shake and your lungs tighten until you're struggling for air amongst the countless rooms with no one around. There's not anyone to criticize you or see you lose your cool it's just you and the bile that is failing to creep up your throat. 

Where's the fucking bathroom.

This place needs a goddamn map and- ah fuck yes you found it. Your damp hand fights against the jactations and when you finally get inside you hastily (but lovingly, you remind yourself, lovingly, lovingly, you love these shades) drop your shades on the sink and throw yourself to the floor. It's beautiful, this whole fucking thing is beautiful, you lean forward with such eagerness you hit your head on the porcelain tank before dropping your arms over the seat and squirming your slender fingers so far down your throat the vomit hits before you can even fuckin blink. 

It's everywhere, and you've missed the bowl a bit but it doesn't matter because you've done it oh god you've-

“...Dave?” 

-you've forgotten to shut the door. 

You sit still for a moment before looking up toward the door frame. 

They've walked in on you, Kanaya and Terezi and Karkat and Sollux and no. No no no. You're hunched over the toilet, with vomit running down you chin, chunks stuck in your bangs, and sliding down your fingers in a thick mess. It's not as humiliating as you had imaged many times before; to see the way they gawk at you, hands curling around their pressed clothing in sharp, unconscious twitches. Actually, you feel close to nothing as they practically line up, mouths open wide and closing suddenly to drown out the penetrating stench of half-digested foodstuffs. This fact almost escapes you, but as you glanced at their eyes you could immediately tell they are disgusted. They don't – can't – understand and they're disgusted with you. You're wasting food, that fact never occurred to you. 

You always take your glasses off when you purge. When you first started you hadn't- the things stayed glued to you- but as shit got more potent and thoughts got more jumbled, you had decided you don't deserve to wear the fierce shade trend your brother had started, let alone the vary pair your best bro had sent to you. John.. what would he think if he saw you like this? That thought is defenestrated quickly, and among the crowd you spy Rose. 

 

You knew you couldn't keep this act up forever. You've been sick for years, and living on a fucking meteor hurling through space time waiting for the practical reincarnation of you/your not-dead brother from another timeline 400 years in the future, well, that isn't always the easiest thing to dawn on a fifteen year old with raging hormones and enough baggage to fill a goddamn airport. Life was hard before. But now.. now was just.. sad. It's you, your ecto-sister, and some aliens, one whom you'd pretty sure would murder you on sight for ruining his religion or some bs (though you'd never admit it, you admire the guy for believing shit all works out in the end, miracles are a lot less magical when you're behind the scenes, even more so when you're running the show). 

So when the coffee was busted out, it was your chance. First off it tasted like complete ass and piss, some variation of the two at least. It'd get the worst coating on top, like pudding skin, and dark gobs of colour would soon take over the would-be pleasant brown liquid. The trolls hated it as much as you did. But when they drank it the only thing that came out of their mouths were complaints, when you or Rose drank it, it was a guaranteed shot to projectile vomit your guts out. Found this out the hard way, well Rose did. You saw her one night curled around a waste bin that was pressed firmly against her chest, eyes heavy, limbs shaky, and hair stuck to her forehead in a consuming cold sweat, as she vomited into the container with surprising resistance. You suppose it runs in the family. 

Needless to say you lived off the stuff. Drank it when nobody was looking, hoarded it little bottles you kept under your bed and tucked snugly in your pockets. Hell, the shit replaced John in those years he was gone. Don't get it wrong you missed him, you missed him so bad that sometimes you'd break down in fits of hunger and malnutrition and just fucking bawl for him, you'd cry so hard you couldn't breathe and pray for so long you'd forget your name (Dave, Dave Strider, Dave fucking Strider, professional cool kid, SB&HJ creator, irony master Dave, Dave, Dave). And it's these exact moments when the honking would start up. You'd get hit with little pieces of it, bits of the faint horns that would send you into a tizzy because that meant again, it was your chance. That fucking clown was around and sometimes you'd yell in the direction of the noise and sometimes it would be so fucking close you could practically hear his breath in the air vents and sometimes you'd beg him to kill you already, to just up and finish the fucking job, to just get it over with. He never would. You can't say you're glad about that. 

On top of that you have nightmares about Bro. If you can even call them nightmares. You suspect they're shards of PTSD thrown into the mix to even things out like paprika on deviled eggs, gotta make that shit seasoned so it's grade A prime nasty. The memory of finding him.. sprawled out on the ground, cold and limp, his legs at odd angles and radiant orange eyes a quickly fainting flicker of muted colour... yeah, those memories hit you hard. Hit you all the time. Hit you in Can Town, in dream bubbles, showering, going to sleep-- going to sleep is always the worst. On occasion, you could swear the sword jutting from his torso somehow found its way into yours, and maybe if you're especially unlucky that night, you could see the blood running out of you. Dark red and gathering on your clothes so fast it runs down them and stains your bed a multitude of different values of velvet. Eventually it would gush out so fast it could accurately be described as a “plethora”, that then rolled off your body and onto the floor. When you look down.. Christ, it's everywhere. Everything is literally covered in your blood, or Bro's blood, you don't even know, you just know there's blood everywhere and you're going to die in it because the the metallic taste is now in your mouth- it's running down your face and the collar of your shirt is soaked in it and it makes you vomit. You vomit all over yourself. And once you vomit, it's gone. Everything's gone. You wrap your hands around your knees, sitting on your bed corner and stare at the ground. There's a pain in your mouth and you realize you've almost bitten through your tongue, but the blood might come back. So you sit, and drenched in vomit, you wait. 

 

Here they find you, mentally beaten to a pulp and still nothing more was said, the silence stretched out into infinite. It would have pierced the whole goddamn void, you're sure of it. It needs to be broken or it'll kill you all off slowly. So you laugh. You laugh, and you laugh so hard you start crying, you don't even bother to wipe the puke off your face you just sit there and grab at your stomach and laugh so hard it hurts. They stare. They stare so hard it's funny. So you laugh some more. 

If John was here he'd laugh with you, you know that. And suddenly, you catch some words slip out between the chuckles and occasional hiccup. You're surprised to find yourself nearly clawing at your face in quick harsh movements of nails on skin. You grab the shades at your side, throwing them against the wall, realizing if they broke you'd be crushed, and it's here you notice you're crying. You're crying and everyone is standing there and just watching you not knowing what to do and unmoving and holy shit you want John so much right now you want to hold him and hug him and pet his stupid soft hair and kiss his dumb buck teeth you want John. 

It's then when your words hit your ears, “fucking help me.” There's arms around you now. You don't even care who they belong to you just grab at them and bury your face into their neck and cry like you've been doing alone for the past year. It's Rose. You can tell by her perfume, it's fresh, she'd just sprayed some on and it smells like flowers and rain and warmth and all those good things. She's kneeling in your vomit- the pile that missed the toilet- after all this time you never managed to get your aim right, but it doesn't even matter because she's literally in your puke and doesn't give a fuck so you sob into her arms and hold her so tight you think you might break her. You think you have broken her as she whispers quiet bits of comfort in your ear about Bro and Mom and Jade all those good things and you scream at the top of your lungs as she brings up you. She tells you how great you are, how strong you are, you're beautiful and meaningful and brave, she calls you a hero, she calls you her hero, you can't even tell anymore if the trolls are still standing there but you don't care. You wail that she's wrong, that you're weak and you're useless and you're nothing, but soon her hushed words over take you, and you're sitting in her lap sniffling and shaking. 

She moves to pick up your glasses and places them on your face. They're cracked a bit in the corner, she assures you she can fix them. 

She holds out her hands and you take them, the two of you sit there not speaking but rather with your eyes closed, enjoying the presence of her here with you. 

Rose embraces you, with the same force and same emotion you had before, and her sentences wafts slowly into you like susurrus of the trees or a song from a distant mourning dove and her lipstick gets in your hair and you smile. 

“John would be so, so proud of you.” 

You cry until your eyes burn.


End file.
